Kannada Prabha Tag

Note: This is my translation of Pratap Simha’s column 18 May 2013 column in Kannada Prabha. An incident comes to mind. The incident is recorded in Shanti Bhushan’s autobiography, Courting Destiny. The incident occurred sometime in 1978. Morarji Desai had completed an year as Prime Minister. He began to face threats to his chair. The powerful Janata leader and Home Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh was eyeing Prime Ministership from the beginning. Another leader, Babu Jagjivan Ram too had Prime Ministerial ambitions. Rebellion was brewing at a steady pace. There wereRead More

Note: This is a translation of Pratap Simha’s column in Kannada Prabha entitled, Menake Bandu Kuniyuvavaregu Vishwamitra Mahatapaswiyaagidda. BJPya katheyu haage aaytu! published on 11 May 2013. Who do we need to blame amongst these: B.S. Yeddyurappa, K.S. Eshwarappa, Jagadish Shettar, Ananth Kumar, Sushma Swaraj, Lal Krishna Advani, and Nitin Gadkari? Who do we hold accountable? Was the Karnataka BJP reduced to this pathetic state thanks to just one person? Or was it the combined “efforts” of these leaders that led to the ignominious end of the first BJP GovernmentRead More

This is a translation of Pratap Simha’s Kannada Prabha column titled Tippuvannu dweshisabekendalla, satya tiliyali endu, published on 9 March 2013. Comments and criticism welcome as always. Image courtesy: Kannada Prabha “I’ll give you a fresh sample of a lie uttered by a writer. In light of the opposition to the proposal to establish a University in Srirangapatana named after Tipu, this writer has falsely claimed that Tipu was a hater of Hindus, and that he had forcibly converted 71,000 Hindus to Islam. When I heard this, I immediately suspectedRead More

Note: This is a translation of Pratap Simha’s piece entitled ??????? ????????? ???????? ????, ???? ???????? ?????????????? ??????? that appeared in Kannada Prabha on 23 February, 2013. Image Courtesy: Kannada Prabha 2 May, 2011 Osama Bin Laden who was hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was flushed out by the United States and gunned down. Not only did the US extract its revenge, it didn’t cremate Laden’s body—it simply chucked his dead body in the sea. Predictably, everybody did expect Al Qaida to take their revenge against America in turn. Al QaidaRead More

Note: This is a translation of Pratap Simha’s piece that appeared in today’s Kannada Prabha. Girish Karnad image courtesy: IBN Live. The Mumbai Lit fest on Friday witnessed major drama when veteran actor and theatre artist Girish Karnad slammed Nobel prize laureate VS Naipaul and called him anti-Muslim. Karnad, who was present at the lit-fest on Friday to conduct a class on theatre, spoke at length about Naipaul. The first paragraph of CNN-IBN’s news report makes it clear that the purpose of Girish Karnad attending the Mumbai Literature Live! festivalRead More

Note: This is a translation of Pratap Simha’s original Kannada Prabha piece titled Baaibittare Banna Bayalaaguttademba Bhayave Manmohan Singh published last Saturday. Hazaron jawabon se acchi hai khamoshi meri Na jaane kitne sawalon ke aabroo rakhe So please answer us: how did this loot of epic proportions, of Rs. 1.86 lakh crores, occur right under your nose? When someone asks, “will you please answer the voters who’ve elected you,” you respond with “my silence is greater than a thousand questions.” Does this how the Prime Minister of the world’sRead More

NOTE: This is my translation of Pratap Simha’s piece titled Hindugale Haedigalaagiruvaaga Anyarannu Doori Phalavenu that appeared in Kannada Prabha on August 25, 2012. As always, comments and criticism are welcome. It has been called brain drain or flight of talent. Much noise has been made against it. It has been held responsible for this nation’s continued backwardness. But then, no matter what, in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s decades, people who had dreams of building a bright future for themselves, people who embarked on a quest to find careerRead More

Note: This is the translation of Pratap Simha’s piece entitled Narendra Modi Haniyalu Congress Hidida Daari Yenthaaddu? that appeared in Kannada Prabha on 21 July, 2012. Translation is entirely mine and has the author’s approval. You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may trod me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you?Why are you beset with gloom?‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wellsPumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just likeRead More

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A reader wrote to me with an experience that he says vexed him. The relevant portion of his email is excerpted below (with his permission via email): …during a talk with a liberal friend of mine, regarding the MF Hussain

As promised, I present the first few verses drawn from Bhartruhari’s Neeti Shataka. A brief introduction to Neeti Shataka is in order. Neeti can generally be understood as a teaching/exposition of morality, conduct, wisdom, behaviour, prudence, and all of these.

I had concluded the previous post with a note on AKR’s understanding of Hindu ethics and traditional expositions on Dharma. He notes that Each addition is really a subtraction from any universal law. There is not much left of an

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About two years ago, writing about how Meera Nanda proudly strutted her ignorance, I observed two things at the outset: Perhaps it takes only a Meera Nanda to have the guts to strut her ignorance with such confidence. It took

The image of India as caste-cow-curry seems to have receded a bit despite the exertions of Indian gatekeepers of the West to perpetuate it. Of the three, the first is definitely the most favourite stick to beat India. However, there

Gross generalizations about a country, a people, and a culture are humourous when done in the lighter vein. In most other cases, they are appalling. If you wonder why Westerners/foreigners are so ill-educated about India, articles like this is the

This entry is dedicated to a wonderful person who is gifted with the rare talent of converting everything into gold. One of the more abused characters in the world of Indian epics is Rama, son of Dasharatha and husband of

Preface It began with this factual article by Dr. Aseem Shukla who exposed the “theft of Yoga” in America. Dr. Shukla details out what we already knew: that Yoga has been appropriated by self-proclaimed “Masters” and “Yogis” and that it

This post is partly my response to an offline discussion I had with a blogger I admire, whose original post trigged this response. Jagadish writes: This makes it even tougher to explain how dark-skinned chaps became heroes in the epics

Jaffna at Secular Right muses on a “radical reinterpretation” of Hinduism and the caste system. In a sentence, the gist of his thoughts: Hinduism has never condemned a truly spiritual person on the basis of caste. The people he cites–from